Wireless Powering for Long-Lasting Deep-Body Bioelectronic Devices: Solutions, limitations, and new technologies [Bioelectromagnetics]

Abstract

During a speech to the American Physical Society in 1959, the physicist Richard P. Feynman presented a visionary idea: “It would be interesting in surgery if you could swallow the surgeon. You put the mechanical surgeon inside the blood vessel, and it goes into the heart and ‘looks’ around. […] It finds out which valve is the faulty one and, takes a little knife, and slices it out. Other small machines might be permanently incorporated in the body to assist some inadequately-functioning organ” [1]. Although this concept might have seemed fantastic at the time, it has proven prescient with the emergence of implantable bioelectronics. Researchers are now designing miniaturized electronic devices capable of interacting with living organisms [2] to gather health data, deliver medication precisely, or stimulate a specific organ or nerve. These advancements enable more accurate diagnoses, continuous health monitoring, and also more effective and less invasive treatments. In doing so, bioelectronics are heralding a new paradigm for medicine in which devices monitor patients during daily life and facilitate preventative care and long-term interventions for chronic diseases.